Nearly 4 in 10 U.S. adults are now obese, CDC says

The L.A. Times reports:

Americans’ obesity rates have reached a new high-water mark. Again.

In 2015 and 2016, just short of 4 in 10 American adults had a body mass index that put them in obese territory.

In addition, just under 2 in 10 American children — those between 2 and 19 years of age — are now considered obese as well.

The new measure of the nation’s weight problem, released early Friday by statisticians from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, chronicles dramatic increases from the nation’s obesity levels since the turn of the 21st century.

Adult obesity rates have climbed steadily from a rate of 30.5% in 1999-2000 to 39.8% in 2015-2016, the most recent period for which data were available. That represents a 30% increase. Childrens’ rates of obesity have risen roughly 34% in the same period, from 13.9% in 1999-2000 to 18% in 2015-2016.

Seen against a more distant backdrop, the new figures show an even starker pattern of national weight-gain over a generation.

In the period between 1976 and 1980, the same national survey found that roughly 15% of adults and just 5.5% of children qualified as obese. In the time that’s elapsed since ”Saturday Night Fever” was playing in movie theaters and Ronald Reagan won the presidency, rates of obesity in the United States have nearly tripled.

Put down that fork....